Animated

[viridian5]

Talking with lady_ganesh, I've realized that the new TV I've enjoyed the most in the past six months has all been animated: The Venture Bros., Naruto Shippuden, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'd love to have someone to talk Avatar with aside from aside from occasionally syvia because I really enjoyed it--though I still haven't seen the start and middle of Water

Comments

[confidentsoba]

*raises hand* I kind of love Avatar---though more Earth Book and Fire Book than Water Book.

Sokka is one of my particular favorites, though I don't have much patience for Katara, and one of my very favorite things about the show in general is how well developed everyone gets over the course of the different plot arcs. (Though that's also where a lot of my dislike of Katara comes from, especially at the end, where she learns her ultimate technique---it didn't really feel like she earned it to me.)

The theater episode might be the best recap episode I've ever seen in anything, anywhere. XD

[viridian5]

Ditto. I enjoy those episodes more than Water Book for Zuko's continuing changes and the addition of characters like Toph, who takes the piss out of Katara and Aang. Also, Aang is somewhat less annoying to me.

Katara can be too into herself and her compassion and mercy for words, which is why I appreciate Toph bringing her down to earth (so to speak) at times.

"Did Jet die?" "It wasn't clear." I thought it was great how the writers took shots at themselves at times as well as at the characters and plot. (Such as the audience yawning the drill sequence as it seems to go on forever.) Also, the stagecraft: stage ninja, trapdoors, wires, glowing paint, ribbonbending....

[greenygal]

Also, the stagecraft: stage ninja, trapdoors, wires, glowing paint, ribbonbending....

The level of detail there was really impressive. I mean, it's a cartoon, it can look like whatever they want...but they thought it through, came up with the effects they would have needed for a real play, and showed it clearly, even in the tiny bits like "Aang" cracking one eye open so she could time her reaction to being "blasted" right.

Also, everyone's reactions to the actors will never stop being funny. "How can you say that??"

[viridian5]

I was very impressed by how much thought the creators put into placing the gang's story on an actual stage. The actors didn't have to do such terrible acting either, though it added another level of hilarity. Stage Zuko's changing hair was almost a special effect itself. Poor Zuko having that one Zuko cosplayer tell him that he had his scar on the wrong side....

"But the you on stage just said...."

[greenygal]

and a character who simply would have been the buttmonkey in many series getting many chances to shine.

You might mean Zuko here, and that wouldn't be wrong either, but for me this was totally my reaction to Sokka, and it made me so happy. The first time I watched Avatar wasn't long after I had given up on the BBC Robin Hood, partly because the character of Much was hitting my embarrassment squick so hard I was having to fast-forward through his dialogue. So my initial reaction to Sokka was "Oh, god, not another one. Even if it's as good as it's supposed to be, I don't know if I can sit through that." Halfway through the first episode, when he tried to defend the village from Zuko--and got his butt kicked, but with no indication we were supposed to think that was funny--I went "hmm." By the end of the second episode--in which his subplot could have been humiliating and instead allows him a fair amount of dignity and growth, while still being pretty funny--I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed that, okay, I could stop worrying

[viridian5]

I was thinking of Sokka. I often fall in love with characters whose series then proceed to degrade and often make the butt of cheap humor. My own embarrassment squick is mighty.

I loved the ending. Of course that's how a Fire Nation production would conclude the show and it would face huge applause. Realistic and a sucker-punch.

[greenygal]

I often fall in love with characters whose series then proceed to degrade and often make the butt of cheap humor.

Not that your icon would relate to this at all.

Of course that's how a Fire Nation production would conclude the show and it would face huge applause.

Yup--and they'd set the play's viewpoint up for us in the treatment of the Fire Nation characters, but the other characters hadn't been demonized or anything, and it's all been so funny, and then...WHAM WHAM WHAM, as the audience cheers, and our heroes sit there stricken.

[lady_ganesh]

I love Avatar so much, and you haven't even gotten to my favorite character yet. Sokka's like the anti-Xander.

[viridian5]

I was talking about Sokka in the buttmonkey bit. Xander and Harper might have the writers making them a pathetic source of "humor," constantly kicked, but Sokka gets his props as the "idea man." He's a strategist and an inventor, planning invasions, imagining submarines, taking apart zeppelin fleets, rescuing political prisoners, and showing people the power of Boomerang.

[lady_ganesh]

Oh, wait, I see re-reading you've finished the series, and yes, exactly. Back when I was watching Buffy I talked a lot about balance on teams and how the Buffy team seemed constantly out of whack-- Xander vacillating from perspective guy to humor guy to 'wait, why is he here' guy and Willow's arc from useful to painfully overpowered to almost useless and then useful again-- and the core group of Avatar seems almost perfectly balanced.

[viridian5]

I really liked Xander, which made what the show kept doing to him really hurt.

Zuko joining the gang also gives them full representation of the four elements and nations.

[ext_59120]

I love Avatar too, if I'm exhausted over all the racefail for the upcoming Live Action Movie. I'm mostly saving my rewatching for when the movie comes out - to soothe my rage.

[viridian5]

Yeah, I was holding back on public expression of my Avatar love in the wake of the live action movie fail. Having seen the show, I have to say the casting excuses ring even hollower than they did before, and they were always ridiculous justifications.

[lady_ganesh]

Someone from the Racebending comm even got hold of some pages from the show bible that says the universe is primarily Chinese.

[viridian5]

...

...did anyone watch the show in the effort of adapting it?

[chorus_of_chaos]

I got to watch part of the series before moving to the land of no TV that is known as Van Bibber and have really wanted to watch the whole thing so badly. The only places I can find to download it though are all huge mkv or avi formats, and I can only download for a few hours in the wee hours of the morning at hideous low speeds. (this is also the land of no internet unless you want to shell out for satellite,, which I did, but has that aptly named FAP policy) I will eventually download it and watch the whole thing. I had just heard about the movie and the whole racefail issue, ugh.. WHY? Stupid casting crews.

[viridian5]

The series is definitely worthwhile. The ridiculousness with the movie is painful.